Rising Fear

I was scrolling thru the free movie site FREEVEE, and noticed a movie shot in my hometown of Pittsburgh that I never heard of before.

Being a Pittsburgh theatre tech and having worked on many film productions myself (Silence of the Lambs, Hoffa, etc) I decided to give it a shot.

I could tell that this was low budget, but the photography and editing was very good and amped the tension. The two lead actors were convincing. My only complaint was the sound quality. The story is good and deserves a big budget treatment.

After viewing I gave it 4 stars, but when I found out that Tom Getty was responsible for EVERYTHING! Writer, director, editor, sound, composer, lead actor, breakfast burritos :-) on a $6000 budget, I bumped it to 6 stars.

Cheers.

This movie is the sequel to that Michael Scarn blockbuster. The guy with the mask is Goldenface. The president is...well, the president. Won't win any awards, but hey, it's better than I could do. I think.

The special effects look like someone made them with Adobe After Effects or Blender on a rainy Sunday afternoon but the acting is not too bad and there are some nice plot twists. It's a decent action movie if you are not expecting much.

And I read it had a budget of $6000, which is amazing. I have seen way worse movies that cost millions (someone mentioned Independence Day Resurgence, that movie was one of them, see The Critical Drinker's takedown of it on YouTube.

Oh and I want the bad guy's mask. I saw it was a MSA mask in the close-up so it should be available on Amazon. When you're forced to wear a face mask because of the Wu Flu you could make the best of it and wear the most awesome one you can find.

A $6000 budget (ok, estimated. I'm sure it would've been a lot more than that had it had real actors) and you're going to snark about it? The story is good. The twists are good. The acting is, ok, wearing a mask is good. You can get an Oscar by painting your face. Just ask what's-his-name the drug addict in the Batman movies.

Ok, yeah, it needs real special effects. And real actors. But on a $6k budget? I think some costs were under reported. Maybe financed by the CIA or something. Enjoy the movie. Have a couple drinks and enjoy the movie. Give this kid some $$ to do a real film and you'll find something good.

Some movies are bad in such a way that they're entertaining or amusing. This is not such a movie. This one is just painful to watch and painful to listen to because the directing, editing, and acting is all so bad. At one point early on the doughy, half-dimensional "star" was being tortured and I actually envied him because he wasn't sitting on my couch watching this movie.

I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because it obeyed my commands and stopped when I pressed the Stop button.